


No Faith in Anything But Hell

by MillysarusRex



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 15:30:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MillysarusRex/pseuds/MillysarusRex
Summary: Thinking of her fills his stomach with a different type of dread. The pure adrenaline he’d felt up till now twists into something sour as the reality sets in. She may know death, she may look forward to death, but no one can possibly understand this.Based off a tumblr post about Gendry showing off that Baratheon anger during the Battle for Winterfell & inspired by alyseofwonderland's work in response to that post.





	No Faith in Anything But Hell

**Author's Note:**

> This was based off a tumblr post in the Gendrya tag about Gendry showing off that Baratheon fury and going absolutely ham on some wights cause they stand between him and his lil' girl. Also, inspired by alsyeofwonderland's work that was in response to it!

                                                                              **No Faith in Anything but Hell**

 

 

          He is not a religious man. He had not been raised to believe in any gods and had no time for them in the years that followed. He had watched how religion had turned the faithful sour, how it brought war down on the heads of the innocent, how it twisted the minds of men. He had been sold and tortured like a slave for the Red God and had stepped among the ruin that had been the Sept of Balor. No, he had very little faith in gods, but he believed in hell.

         For if anything were hell, it would surely be _this_. Death surrounds them. The grounds of Winterfell, pristine with white snow just hours earlier, is red and rotten, splattered with decaying limbs and blood.

         His own blood drums loudly in his ears as he swings his mace. The fighting has not ceased since the Dothraki road off into the darkness, their flaming arakhs blinking out like lanterns in the night. The dead never stop. They trample over the bodies of Northerners and Unsullied alike. Their screeches mix with the horrified screams of men and women being slaughtered left and right and he knows if he were to stop and think, his muscles would ache.

        But, he does not have time to think. He doesn’t have time to do much other than _move_ and _fight_.

       They are losing. The dragon queen and Jon are nowhere to be seen, but roaring overhead signals the dragons are somewhere in the skies. Beside him, the red-headed wilding, Tormund, is roaring just as loud. They stand atop a mountain of battered corpses and the dead _keep coming_.

       His eyes flash around him, desperately searching for grey. But she isn’t here. If there are gods, he hopes she’s somewhere in the castle, safe from the carnage that is Winterfell’s courtyard. He has to tell himself that she’s safe, that if anyone can survive this hell, it is Arya Stark.

       Arya Stark, who came back into his life much like the way she had the first time, a winter storm that could rival even this frigid night. Her grey eyes like steal, cutting him to the bone. She is somehow different and all the same, still proud and bossy, strong as ever. But she has grown, both in body and spirit, and he had watched her strip off her clothes with the same easy seriousness that she had tossed those dragon glass daggers in the forge hours earlier.

       Thinking of her fills his stomach with a different type of dread. The pure adrenaline he’d felt up till now twists into something sour as the reality sets in. She may know death, she may look forward to death, but _no one_ can possibly understand this.

      The greatest army the world had ever seen was fizzled out, as easy as blowing out a candle, and none of them had been prepared for this.

     A shout – and he slams his mace into the skull of another wight. A jawless Unsullied nearly takes out Tormund. Somewhere in the distance, a girl screams.

     It is then that something different coils within his chest. Something he knows well, something he’s felt his entire life but always kept neatly buried deep within.

      _Rage_.

     It crashes over him like a wave and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s screaming. His muscles move mindlessly as he moves forward and starts crashing the mace into everything that crawls into his field of vision.

     Something grabs the back of his jerkin and he swings around, thrusting the dragon glass spikes into the throat of a blue-eyed Dothraki. He kicks at another Wight that makes a grab for his boots and draws the speared base down onto the skull of a third.

     He’s _livid_ because _of course_ he would find something worthwhile in the midst of hell. Of course Arya would come to him on what seems like their last night on earth, showing him all that he could have, all that he has been denying himself for as long as he can remember.

     He has never loved anyone. Has never had anyone love _him_. But the burning feeling in the pit of his stomach as his mind travels to her – somewhere up there in the broken, burnt walls of her childhood home – has his heart pounding and he knows, _knows_ it is true and it _enrages_ him.

     For all his life he has just been some lowly no-named bastard who didn’t deserve the love Arya Stark had shown him mere hours ago. But that’s not true, he _has_ a name, he is a king’s son and the Red Witch had said there was power in king’s blood.

      _Ours is the fury_.

     All he sees from then on is red, red like the fires the Red Priestess summoned, red like blood stinging his eyes, seeping into his clothes. He swings and swings like he’s back in the forge on the Street of Steel with his hammer.

     He nearly misses the sword that swings unsteadily at him; its steel grazing across his middle and the muted sting of pain, but he does not think about it, only acts. And he draws the mace down like his hammer, smashing smashing _smashing_ the mutilated face of what must have been a Northern soldier. He’s screaming and _smashing_ and when a hand grabs his elbow he nearly pummels Tormund’s face.

    “He’s dead, you crazy bastard!” The wildling screams over the sounds of carnage and war. But Gendry does not stop, he _cannot_ stop, and as he kicks a Wight in the jaw he shouts to the wilding,

    “I will _not_ die here tonight,” Another Wight. “I will not die until I know that she is safe! And if I make it out of here alive, to hells with propriety, nothing will keep me from her. Especially not some fucking dead twat!” And if it were any other man, he would have thought Gendry crazy rattling off like that in the midst of a war, but it is Tormund, and so the wildling laughs, killing a Wight and grinning at him.

    “I think I'll do the same, boy.”

    And so they fight. And they fight and fight and fight until at once everything stills. It is as sudden as the wind, and his chest is heaving, his heart pounding, as the corpses crumple to the ground, once again dead. He cannot believe it, cannot comprehend what is happening until someone shouts that its over.

    They have won.

 

 

****

     Bran tells her that its over.

     The Night King has been defeated.  _She_ has saved them all. 

     But, it does not feel like a victory. The grounds of Winterfell, which once held such cherished memories of innocence and childhood wonder, are soaked with blood. Mutilated bodies twist around one another, forming mountains taller than her head. 

     They have won, but they have lost so much.

     She knows death, has become death itself, but she is still Arya Stark, and the scene that lies before her twists her insides violently until she's emptying the contents of her stomach by a severed hand of one of the Dragon Queen's bloodriders. The reality of the night seems to finally be setting in, and she drops to her knees. She's exhausted. She has not slept in what seems like weeks and throughout the battle she had not had a moments rest. She had moved automatically, time standing still as her training took over. She had not thought about anything but survival, but now it takes all her willpower not to close her eyes and sleep right here, in a sea of blood and guts.

    She hears voices in the distance, a voice that sounds like Jon, and she stands, her muscles screaming in protest. She  _needs_ sleep, but she needs to know that her family is alive more, so she forces her aching limbs and bones to move her toward the courtyard where the voices carry. As she limps into the wreckage, she spots his face. It's bloodied and beaten, but its him. Jon.

    "Arya!" he shouts when he spots her. He runs toward her and envelopes her into a tight hug. The blood and sweat that covers them squelches unpleasantly as they part but she does not care and neither does he. They are alive. That is all that matters.

  "The Night King -"

"Dead," she mutters. Jon's eyes widen with realization and he chuckles.

 "You?"

"Stuck him with the pointy end." 

Jon's laugh is like music after a night filled with screaming. "And Bran?"

"In the godswoods, alive. Theon is dead."

Jon's eyes lower and he mutters a curse. "At least he died an honorable death."

She wants to ask if there is such a thing, but she does not. "And what of Sansa?"

They move wordlessly toward the crypts. There is nothing but death in front of her. They have won the war, but death has won as well. They have been lucky so far. She hopes He has not chosen to take Sansa along with the faces of the strangers that litter the grounds. Lady Brienne and her squire Podrick dig their way out through the sea of bodies that have trapped them against a wall. The kingslayer, Jaime Lannister, helps. 

They find Sansa, amongst the faces. Her blue eyes, so much like their mother's, are filled with tears as she grasps onto them for dear life. 

"You're alive. You're alive." She is muttering, half crazed. 

It seems like hours before she can bear to part with her siblings. She has spent long enough away from them and almost lost them again. But there is still another face that is missing, and she knows she cannot sleep until she finds him.

His face is not among those that mill about the courtyard and she cannot bring herself to look at the ones that peek out in piles in the snow. He could be there, somewhere buried beneath the dead. He could very well be out in the stretch of field that was the front line. It was where he had been stationed. She hopes, prays that he lived. She does not know if she could bear losing him again.

He'd said he was a fighter, but anyone can be killed. Death had spared her siblings but death was not kind.

It seems like hours later when she finally spots him. He is talking with the wildling with the crazy eyes that always seems to follow Brienne. He is alive - she can scarcely believe it. For the thousandth time that morning, relief washes over her. She wants to laugh and cry, but she does not; instead she calmly walks over to where they stand, surrounded by death and decay.

The wildling sees her first and he mutters something to Gendry, that loud barking laugh of his filling the air before stomping off in the direction she had seen Brienne. She stands patiently, waiting for Gendry to turn, wanting desperately to see the relief on his face that screams we survived - you survived - but he does not turn. His hands clench at his sides into fists and she's so close she can see the muscles in his jaw tick. She wants to call him stupid, ask if he is deaf as well as dumb, but he turns and the words die in her throat.

She'd expected relief, expected that half smile of his that always made her heart race like she'd just been in battle, but his lips are pressed in a firm line and his blue eyes are hard. 

"We won." She says, because its the only thing she can think of saying. He snorts derisively like she's the stupid one. "Is something the matter?"

His face breaks then, filling with an unfamiliar fury that she does not recognize. He slams his weapon onto the ground furiously, the mace crushing the frozen face of a wight as if they are still at war.

"That's it? That's all you have to say?" He is livid, angrier than she's ever seen him and it throws her off so much that she can do little else but gape at him.

"What's your problem?" She forces out. This only incites him more. 

"What's my problem?!"

They are surrounded by the dead but something pools low in her belly as she takes him in, bloodied and dirty, anger flaming like the fires in his forge. 

Her knees threaten to feel weak, but she is Arya Stark of Winterfell and she will not be bested by some man, even if he does look handsome, all warrior in his leathers. She tilts her chin up defiantly. "Yes, you're acting ridiculous. We've won the war, what's wrong with you?"

"You!"

Her nose scrunches up in confusion. "Me?"

"Yes, you. You and your insane need to be in the middle of every fucking battle. I know you've survived more than I could ever understand and I know you've got that fancy trick with the daggers, but you could have been killed, Arya. You could have died and I would have to live every day knowing that I found you and loved you only to lose you." 

That makes her step back. Her cool facade cracks and her grey eyes widen. If he is embarrassed by his admission, he does not show it. The anger still stretches across his face but his blue eyes flash with something. Sadness, she thinks.

A smile breaks out across her face. He loves her. Her stupid, stubborn, bull-headed boy loves her, and suddenly it is as if there was no war, no death surrounding them. A choke of laughter erupts from her throat and she thrusts herself into him, crushing herself into his chest, kissing his face, caked with blood and dirt and who knows what else. 

They are surrounded by death but he loves her. 

And she loves him.


End file.
